With Holiday season, offers and deals, Brands can engage audiences beyond loyal customers. The new customers that engage with your brand for the first time can prove to be a valuable source of leads and revenue. Amazon has introduced Amazon Prime as a Gifting option, where users can exchange the subscription for a gift card and the referrer receives a bonus reward on successful sign-up.

With Referral Marketing, you can get friends of customers engaged with  your offers with a seasonal theme. The referral marketing programs can be used throughout the customer journey.

Here are Five Ways to acquire, engage, retarget, activate and retain your customers with a Holiday themed campaign.

Reward The Friend And The Advocate

Encourage customers to sign up for a program by rewarding both the friend and the advocate. For audiences looking for Gift purchases and entertaining options for the Holiday season, a referral program built around rewards for the advocates, is likely to resonate better.

Referrals can also be used to boost engagement with your existing fans and followers. Manchester United’s Contest rewards five winning entries with a free Christmas card signed by the players for the entrant and a friend.

 

 

Elf Tip

Introduce ” Buy One Get One” Free offers on Social Media to increase sign-ups for your Referral program. Email marketing can help you get to the customers as the open rates for your Holiday email tends to be higher.

 

Create Holiday Specific Programs

If there is a cap on maximum number of customers that members can sign-up, holiday season and sales events are the right time for increasing the number of sign-ups as the friends of program members are most likely to be looking for offers and deals.

Elf Tip

Introduce special Holiday experience to make your Referral program more engaging. For brands promoting Gift cards, Referral marketing can bring newer customers with special offers.

Build Anticipation For Rewards

Customers look forward to the next reward level that they can reach with referrals and Loyalty programs. Introduce any surprises that you have for your best customers. This could be linked to more rewards or complimentary offers. Promote your referral program with a Sweepstakes campaign.

Elf Tip

Referred customers are better customers.

Promote your Referral Marketing Program

Increase the likelihood of your referral program being discovered by audiences during Holiday Season with Keywords articulated for your campaign discovery. Optimize the landing pages and brand sites appropriately. Using User Generated content boosts engagement for your campaigns.

Elf Tip

Include Keywords and Hashtags that will help your content get discovered, in your social media posts. As seen from Papa John’s post including #Sweepstakes makes the program easier to find.

Presume Participation

Customize the landing page experience for the referred audience, and presume participation by including social media links and any offers that you would like to introduce for the newly signed-up members.

 

Elf Tip

Encourage customers to participate by showing the way to increase their rewards and earnings from the referral program. Encourage audiences to log in with their social media profiles. Include social media icons and sharing options at all check-out and sign up pages

Source: Extole